


pushing a ghost in a shopping cart

by Skullszeyes



Series: Eating The Dead [15]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brother Feels, Brotherly Bonding, Drug Use, Fluff, Gen, Good Brother Ben Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Protective Ben Hargreeves, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 02:32:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18240599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skullszeyes/pseuds/Skullszeyes
Summary: Klaus is wandering the streets alone, well, with his brother, but no one knows that.





	pushing a ghost in a shopping cart

**Author's Note:**

> I want to write more Klaus & Ben fics, I really love their brotherly scenes during TUA. :D I don't necessarily ship them, but maybe I'll write something up some time soon. Not sure when. I just wanted to write something fluffy between them, because I just love them! They're my second fav characters in the series. 
> 
> Twenty-One Pilots - My Blood. (The song I was listening to while writing this fic.)
> 
> I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Comments and/or Kudo's are appreciative.

Lying in the middle of an empty road. The stars, barely returning their gazes upon the glassy eyed addict smiling to the sky above. He laughs, the cold wind caressing his stomach.

“Drink. Drink. Drink.”

Klaus sits up and wrinkles his nose at his brother, Ben, who’s already on his feet, jumping up and down like when he was younger, when he was hyper, unlike the attitude he would show the others. Klaus smiled and helped himself to his feet, his coat with the fur lining hung loose around his thin body as he strutted down the empty street, taking out another small bag with blue colored pills inside it. 

“Again?” 

“Again,” he answered delightfully.

“We should get a drink.”

Klaus stared at the bag. “What drink?” 

“A fountain drink, or a slushie?”

Klaus scowled, digging into his pockets and finding a bit of change he had left from the last time he stole money. His  _ friend’s _ weren’t using it anyway. “I have enough for one.”

“Does it really matter?” Ben asked, walking beside him, hands tucked in his pockets. 

Klaus gave his brother a smirk. “I was just saying. Fine, I think there’s a store up ahead that offers those types of drink. And next time, don’t bring it up.”

“You haven’t eaten in awh—”

Klaus glared, tucking the money back into his pockets. “Shut up, you’re not my mother.”

“If you ever visited.”

He scoffed, looking back at the bag. “As if, dad would never shut up about my appearance and life choices. Why both going back just for a visit when I can spend my time with my brother.”

Ben rolled his eyes as Klaus placed the bag back into his pockets. He didn’t have a place to sleep, which wasn’t in anyway startling. He didn’t want to think about that, because if he has too, than he’ll also have Ben bother him about it. 

They reach the store, and Klaus swings the door open. He ignores the cashier behind the counter and walks along the somewhat clean linoleum that smells of strong citrus. He takes out a plastic cup and hums at his many choices.

“Grape?” Ben asked, coming up beside him. 

Klaus chews on his bottom lip. “Cream Soda...and lime.” 

Ben says nothing as Klaus chooses the slushies, barely full before adding grape to the top and placing a plastic cap on top, sticking in two different colored straws. A pink and purple one for each of them as he carries the drink to the cashier. 

The cashier seemed almost confused, Klaus notices the furrowed brows at the two straws as they silently scan the cup and ask for the money. Klaus dumps his change into their hand and smiles at them as they count the silver coins. 

Klaus picks up his cup once he’s returned a dime and nickel and leaves the store.

“Where are we going now?” Ben asked, keeping in pace with him. “I mean, it’s two in the morning, Klaus, are we going to one of your friends?”

“Why would we do that?”

“Uh...so you can sleep.”

Klaus chuckled, taking out the bag and swallowing the pills before slurping up the contents of his drink again. Efficiently ignoring Ben’s question.

Ben frowns at him. “You’re not going back to your friends? Then where are you going to sleep, Klaus? A shelter?”

“I’m not going to a shelter.”

“Klaus!” 

“Shut up,” Klaus said, gritting his teeth and sneering at Ben who matched his glare. “Stop asking me these dumb questions, I don’t want to go to my  _ friends,  _ or to a shelter, we’re going to wander this city until—”

“Until what? You pass out on some bench and the police wakes you up?”

Klaus shrugs, continuing walking down the sidewalk. “Wouldn’t be the first time” His hand was getting cold, he pulled up his sleeve and carried the drink like that until he noticed an empty parking lot at a closed grocery store. 

“Come on,” he told Ben and they wandered over to a wooden bench and sat down, he placed a leg over the other, and shuddered. “Great idea, by the way.”

Ben didn’t know what else to do with his face besides frown and look guilty. Klaus glanced away, trying his hardest to ignore feeling that same guilt when he berated his brother. 

“I don’t want you sleeping on a bench,” Ben said.

Klaus slurped his drink before noticing one specific thing in the parking lot that sat against a lamp post. 

“Oh, I don’t think that will matter after this,” he told him, setting the drink down and getting up from the bench, he skipped over to the lone shopping cart, cold on the handles with a glinting silver all around it as he twisted it around. He smirked at Ben who stood a few feet away, looking unamused. “Get in.”

Ben’s brows pinched, glancing at the shopping cart than at Klaus. “No.”

“Come on, get in!”

“The last time—”

“The last time we did this,” Klaus said, pushing the cart toward Ben, “was when Five was still wandering around, but he’s not here, it’s only us now.”

“Technically,” Ben said, stepping through the shopping cart, arching a brow at Klaus, “I’m not here either.”

“Get in, Ben!” Klaus said, letting go of the handle and spinning in place, “or I won’t find a place to sleep.”

“You’re actually using that against me!”

“Get in the damn shopping cart,” Klaus sang.

Ben let out a grunt and when Klaus came to a stop, barely falling as he gripped the handles to the cart and found Ben sitting with his knees to his chest, glaring at Klaus. 

He smirked, this was a lot more amusing than he thought it would be. “Alright, hang on.”

“Shut up.”

Klaus laughed, and pushed the shopping cart throughout the parking lot, lifting his feet onto the metal bar when it was fast enough and skidded along, but to his drugged out mind, he forgot Ben also didn’t weigh anything and the cart toppled to the side, and he fell with it.

He groaned and pushed himself onto his back, his arms stretched out as he stared up at the empty sky. A smile on his bruised lip, his leg throbbed, including his arm when he landed on it. But all he did was laugh to himself as Ben lied down with him. 

“Can we go now?” Ben asked. 

All those stars he couldn’t see because of light pollution seemed incredibly far away, and it was somehow unfair.

“I wish I saved you,” Klaus whispers.

“It’s too late to be thinking that.”

Klaus turned his head and looked at his brother and smiled. “True.” Sitting up, he rolled his shoulder. “Where are we going?”

“A few blocks from here, there’s a shelter you can stay at for the night,” Ben said as Klaus rose. 

“And tomorrow night?” he asked, returning for his drink left on the ground. 

“Maybe we can visit mom.”

“Maybe I can see one of my  _ friends  _ than to confront dad,” Klaus told him as they started their way out of the parking lot. 

“You ever think about calling Diego or…?”

“No, let’s not bring them up,” Klaus told him, taking out another bag and swallowing the last two pills. He slurped the drink as Ben walked beside him, he offered his brother some and smiled at his glare.

“They care.”

“If they cared, we would’ve seen them instead of hearing the exploits of our sister’s opinions of us in her book.”

“Fine, let’s just think of what’s happening right now, and that’s to get you to a shelter to sleep, and maybe something to eat.”

Always trying to take care of him, a voice beside him, a comfort to smile at and sometimes curse when he got too bothersome. 

At least he wasn’t alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, I sorta just wanted to write something simple as I recover from a depressive episode.


End file.
